Freedom of ex-Allentown cop tied to fate of police pension

When Corey Cole, a former Allentown police officer who admitted to stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from a volunteer firefighting company, fights in court to save his police pension, he’ll also be fighting for his own freedom.

The 44-year-old East Allen Township man, who pleaded guilty in January to stealing roughly $315,000 from the Lehigh Township Fireman’s Relief Association, is being given additional time to challenge Allentown’s denial of his police pension. Northampton County President Judge Michael J. Koury Jr. allowed Cole to withdraw his guilty plea Tuesday with the understanding that he would enter it again this spring, after a court rules on his appeal over the pension.

Koury indicated that if Cole can save his pension, which would amount to yearly payments of $47,000 for the rest of his life, he will be given a county sentence on his access device fraud and theft charges. This would allow Cole to enter a work release program and continue to pay back the firefighter fund and insurance company, as well as give him the means to support his family.

But if the courts determine that Cole is only eligible for the $73,000 lump sum contribution to the pension fund, Koury said Cole will face a state prison sentence.

The majority of the lump sum payout, meanwhile, will go toward the firefighter fund’s losses of about $65,000. Cole will be on his own to scrape together the money to pay about $250,000 owed to the insurance company from his thefts.

“He has a significant interest in working to have that pension ruling overturned,” Deputy District Attorney James Augustine said.

Augustine did not object to Cole’s guilty plea withdrawal under the agreement that it would be reinstated in the spring, though he said Cole will ultimately have the option to go to trial in April if he so chooses. Though officials with the Lehigh Township Fireman’s Relief Association were hoping for closure in the case, Augustine said they understand how Cole’s winning his pension could help all parties involved in the long run.

Cole initially pleaded guilty to the thefts, which stretched over about seven years, in January, but the issue of his pension created frequent scheduling changes for the sentencing. Augustine explained that the law does not allow for indefinite sentencing delays once a defendant pleads guilty, which required the judge and attorneys in this case to come up with a different strategy to allow time for the resolution of the pension issue.

“This allows us to restart the clock and it doesn’t put anyone in a worse position,” Augustine said.

When Cole expected to be sentenced in August, he expressed deep remorse for his actions. His words of apology caught in his throat as he described how the thefts hurt those he loved and forced him away from organizations and a career he treasured.

“That was the scariest thing I’d ever done,” he said, describing the day when he came clean to those he knew about the theft. “I had betrayed everyone.”

He recounted how he told his wife after he had come home from the doctor’s office. She knew something was wrong and feared he’d received bad news about his health. Instead, she learned that the family’s financial future was at risk. Cole said he lost his home, his car and the career he dreamed of since he was a child.

He said his wife is “still trying to wrap her head around why I did it.” His children struggle with the knowledge that their father may not be around for important milestones.

Cole wrote more than $221,000 in checks that benefited him, spent nearly $74,000 using the association’s bank card and created nearly $20,000 of fictitious invoices, authorities said.

He said he still didn’t fully understand his motivations, noting it could have been greed or opportunity or just a sense of jealousy over the financial success of those around him.

“You have no idea how sorry I am for the hurt I caused,” Cole said, directing his comments to members of the association who were there for the sentencing. “These firefighters are a brotherhood. And I threw that all away.”